Wednesday, December 07, 2005

More Absurd Administrative Rhetoric

In today's Indypendent article on the strike, NYU mouthpiece John Beckman states, "The whole rhetoric of corporatization is vilification."

This is, by far, one of the more ridiculous statements put out by the university! The concept of "corporatization" is not necessarily held pejoratively -- particularly not among those on the Right, and especially not among neoliberal ideologues who envision it as a utopian ideal, in many respects. I'm sure people of such ilk could expound on the merits of corporatizing higher education (as could President Sexton himself, who bills NYU as an "Enterprise"); unfortunately, I can't, and thus won't. I will argue, however, that in certain circles, corporatization does not imply vilification at all, and indeed signifies the exact opposite.

Beckman's statement is almost as ridiculous as what President John Sexton had to say at the Town Hall meeting in July 2005, which was called to discuss GSOC's fate at NYU as a community. Sexton's statements stand at the apex of absurdity in this ongoing battle for union re-recognition.

In response to the question from an NYU GA in the audience, "What is the logic for denying union representation to us," and then pushed to clarify his original statement on the university's position, Sexton says:

"Look, I'm a professor at the law school. When I finish my civil procedure exam, I have 150 students' bluebooks, and they write a lot, these law students, about five bluebooks each. I know what it means when the semester's over to have to invest a minimum of 250 to 300 hours grading those bluebooks, because they're first semester exams, OK? Is it pleasant? No. Do I consider myself a worker, as a tenured faculty member of the law school? No." [Laughter erupts from the audience.]

This statement is just downright nutty. To listen to the entire audio file from this meeting, go to the NYU Strike Archive (scroll down to the first link under the heading, "Negotiations").